


On What Wings (Dare He Aspire) [1/2]

by penny_dreadful



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penny_dreadful/pseuds/penny_dreadful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...It's a Circus!AU, set in the late 80s (around the fall of the Soviet Union) in Arizona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Pavel can only barely remember the Moscow Circus School. He remembers the sharp crack of the master's stick on the ground, the chanting - _onetwothreefouronetwothreefour_ \- as the trapeze students practiced their routines. "There is nothing below you, nothing above, nothing but the rhythm and the song." The master (schoolmaster, ringmaster) would bark out. "The people watch you not because you twist yourselves and hurt yourselves and wake up with cracked skulls! They watch you because you are _music_. "

He remembers pretty Ronya, breaking her arm against a rhythm too fast for her. He remembers poor starving Valya, with her ribs sticking out like frosted branches, as she stretched and pushed herself against the silken ropes which suspended her.

He remembers the chaos which came after, when the State as dissolved, when they fled here, to far, strange America.

He thinks sometimes he misses it - not the barked orders, not the thin children made cruel by overwork, but the feel of it when you step upon the sand and let your shadow take over your motion, let your mind dissolve.

He lies curled in his bed in the trailer where they live, worn blanket tugged tight around slim shoulders, and dreams of an audience.

*

He gets a job in town, at the tiny, grimy convenience store. The man there is not nice, but he is not mean, either, a glum, sad sort of grouchy, fat and maybe a bit too greedy from the register but it is his store, and it is not as if Pavel is used to being paid much. He makes enough, though, to buy sugar and cinnamon and a little cracked mortar and pestle for his mama, for her to grind and sweeten her strong black tea. "Baba Jaga," he calls her, cheeky, and she tosses curses at him like darts.

He has been working there a month when she first comes in, the women with feet like a dancer. She sways up to him and orders a pack of cigarettes in a voice that says she has already had too many. Her money is worn and wrinkled, and when he hands her the pack she taps one out right there on the counter.

"You're new," she says, holding the cigarette between her third and fourth finger, white paper striking against her dark skin. She slides a match, sharp-snap, against the countertop.

"Yes," Pavel says, because he is. "So are you," he points out with the beginning of a smile, "to me."

She watches the smile grow and then fade on his face like the burst of flame sheltered in her palm, and then she smiles back. "Always new again," she says, and chuckles. "Traveler's curse."

Her name is Nyota, he learns, Nyota Uhura, and she is a dancer. "Of a sort," she says, "Of a sort." He learns that she has a tragic love, a man she pines for that will not see her. He learns she has many friends, old and new, all of whom have strange names and even stranger lives.

"So when do they come and see me, huh?" He asks her one day, draped across the counter. His shirt is sticking to his back, it is so hot, and her hair is curled dark and tangled at the base of her neck.

"They would, Pasha," she answers, "But they are wanted by the law, and dare not show their faces."

"All of them?" He laughs, but she nods, dark eyes sparkling and solemn at once. "Of course. After all, what are we, on our own? Nothing but men and women, Pasha. But together...together we're dangerous."

He raises his eyebrows. "What are you, a band of outlaws?"

"Worse." She says, and leans close. "We're a circus."

He has to juggle a carton of eggs, not dropping one, before she is convinced that his babbled half-memories are genuine. A few cartwheels in the dust outside and she has agreed to show him.

She drives him out into the desert in her old jeep, jazz piano in the tape deck, as the sky turns dusky pink. "Jazz was invented in Russia," he tells her, and she laughs.

The tent stands huge and lonely, trailers gathered beside it like piglets suckling at a mother sow.

Nyota cuts the engine a ways from the tent, towing Pavel by the wrist across the sand. At the flap of the tent she holds a long finger to her lips. He can hear a drum, pounding a heartbeat, and thinks, _onetwothreefouronetwothreefour_ -

She lifts the flap of the tent.

**

The first thing he notices, high above like bats, are the trapeze artists.

There are three of them at first, flipping and swinging to the drumbeat, the gossamer of the net below making them shimmer like the air above the hot black roads of the town in summer. Pavel tries and tries again to blink it away before he realizes his mistake, and by then two of the three have caught onto the hanging silks and began winding their way down like spiders. As they come, they fade from illusions to women, both blonde and dressed in simple black leotards, flipping and unraveling the silk around them. The older woman spots them, and speeds up, past the drumbeat's loud tempo.

Pavel almost winces in memory. That would have been a beating, by the master.

The woman steps gracefully from the silks, greeting them both with a wide smile, just as the other reaches the ground, perfectly in tempo.

Nyota gestures to him. "Christine, Janice, this is Pavel Chekov, I've mentioned him before. Turns out he was actually trained in this shit, went to a school for circus and everything."

Uhura's lit another cigarette, and the smoke catches Pavel's eyes, brings them back up to the darkened peak of the tent, where the single trapeze artist is still dancing from bar to bar, tight, perfect somersaults arcing back and forth. He makes it look effortless in a way that the students never had, and looking at him, Pavel almost heard the melody and harmony soaring out and around the drum's rhythm.

_They watch you because you are music._

 A beat on the drum and then the figure is plummeting, falling straight onto the net.

Pavel sucks in a harsh breath, but the net stretches, stretches, bounces him back up onto the platform he must have started from, and he lands balanced perfectly on the balls of his feet, arms stretched upwards to the heights of the tent high above.

"Hey, Hikaru!" Nyota calls, blowing out another plume of smoke. "Stop fucking around."

Hikaru relaxed his posture and glanced down at them, half-smiling. "Someone's gotta test the net sometimes, Uhura," He calls back, and then turns to descend the ladder, lithe and somehow captivating in his own simple black costume.

Nyota beckons Pavel away with the hand holding the cigarette, and, somewhat reluctant, he goes.

***

He learns that the silk-dancers, Uhura's colleagues, are Christine Chapel and Janice Rand. They ask him about the School - most things he can't remember or never knew in the first place, like why it was started and what was it for, really, and how could a circus be _state funded?_

The trapeze artist is Hikaru Sulu, and Nyota's talked about him before, exasperated mostly, but also a little admiring.

He meets the ringmaster, a man with a quick, charming smile and an unmistakable air of command about him. "James Tiberius Kirk," he says his name is, with no small amount of flair, and really, it's a good name to put some flair into (certainly better than "Pavel", which his earliest American schoolmates were quick to point out rhymes with "hovel" and "grovel". Not that it does, pronounced correctly, and not that they knew what either of those words meant, but the point remains). At his side is a man with a juggler's long fingers and a sardonic, still sort of face. Nyota spends the least time on him, the cigarette trapped tight between her lips.

He meets Scotty, who was playing the drum, and who salutes him with a hip-flask of something suspiciously pungent. He meets Bones, briefly. "It's short for "sawbones", old American slang for a doctor," Nyota explains when he asks. "He's everyone's best friend."

Bones snorts at that. "No," he says, drawing out in a strange drawl, "I'm Jim's best friend. The rest of you love me for my drugs."

Nyota flashes him a winning smile and moves on.

She shows him the places, too - the great center ring, of course, but the side rings, too, where the jugglers juggle and Scotty clowns, when he isn't playing the drum for the main act.  She shows him the animal cages, out the back, with the beautiful horses and the baby elephant and the huge, great lion, who looks at Pavel like a king upon a peasant.

Finally she leaves him by the center ring, vanishing off with the two blondes, and he finds himself staring at a shirtless Hikaru Sulu going through the movements of a sword-dance.

The children at the Moscow School had seemed broken when they weren't flying, like birds hopping about on claws they didn't really know how to use.

Hikaru Sulu does not look like a man that can ever be broken.

Aground, he is just as graceful as he was aflight. He moves smoothly, a tiger's raw, unthinking strength in the flex of the muscles under his skin. His sword is bright in his hand, flashing and bright, and Pavel almost wants to step in under it, join the dance, though it might draw blood, just to bend and sway in opposition and partnership with him.

He doesn't, though, because that is a ridiculous thought, and his mother will kill him if he comes home bloodied because he wished to dance with a beautiful man.

He doesn't, because when Hikaru Sulu notices him, he stops, thrusting the sword's point into the sand and sawdust at his feet. "Chekov," he says, "Right?"

Pavel ducks his head in a nod, wanting nothing so much as to be invisible and keep watching the martial dance. But Sulu steps forward, letting the sword stand like a marker in the center of the ring. "Where'd Uhura go?" He asked, peering at the shadows at Pavel's side like they will resolve themselves into a woman. "She was showing you around, right?"

Pavel nodded. "She and...Christine, was it? And Janice, the dancers. They are practicing."

"You didn't want to watch?" There is something dark and curious in Sulu's eyes.

"Sure," he says, "But I would rather - " watch _you_ "- explore. I have had the...training,  but not the atmosphere. It is..." He turns his eyes upwards, peering up through his curls to the peaked roof of the ten, to the shadowed billows and hushes curves of it, and then looks back at Sulu, who stands still and shirtless, slightly off-center, in the circle of light. "...beautiful, but I think perhaps a little scary."

Sulu smiles, lips tight over secrets. "You're a smart kid."

"I'm seventeen," Pavel protested. "Back home, that is adult enough."

It means nothing more, back home, than it does here, but he feels a sudden need to be strong, stand tall, opposite Sulu.

Sulu's smile breaks open white and laughing, and Pavel wants to be offended, but the whole tent feels breathless and surreal and then he is laughing, too, all of the tension rushing from him. He sags against the bright-painted wall of the ring and hangs his head with his laughter. When he looks up, Sulu is watching him, mirth swallowed down inside and only leaking from his eyes.

"They'll probably be a while," he says, nodding his head to the partition where Nyota disappeared. "Do you have a place to go back to? People who'll miss you, I mean? It is getting kind of late."

Pavel sucks his lip into his mouth. "I should probably go home, yes, I suppose," he says, slowly.

Sulu retrieves the sword from where it stands in the sand. "You want me to take you?" He asks, off-hand.

Pavel opens his mouth. "Yes," is what he finally settles on saying. He wonders if there is a word, in Russian or in English, that could say all the things he means.

****

The jeep is apparently communal circus property, or maybe Sulu just doesn't care, because Nyota left the keys in and he hops readily enough into the driver's seat. Pavel slides into the passenger side, feeling jittery and nervous. The stars are out and the desert is finally starting to cool. Sulu has slipped on a black, open shirt that flutters around his chest, drawing Pavel's eyes.

"You live in town?" Sulu asks him, running a hand through his hair, and he has the same sort of casual grace driving as he does everything else. Pavel stares upwards at the stars instead. "Just outside," he says, "In a trailer."

Sulu chuckles, and Pavel resists the urge to glance at him. "Jesus," Sulu says, "You really are a circus brat, huh?"

"What do you mean?" Pavel asks, frowning.

"Most people would be ashamed of living in a trailer." Sulu answers. "You sound almost proud."

Pavel blinks, and now he is looking Sulu. "It is a house that moves," he says. "What is there to be ashamed of?"

Sulu looks at him, glances at the road, and looks at him again, gaze measuring. "Nothing," he says. "Nothing at all."

They drive in silence for a while. Pavel thinks about putting in another jazz tape, but he likes this better - the silence is somehow warm between them, made so by stolen and open glances alike.

When they pull up in front of the park, there are lights on in his trailer. As he opens the door, his mother calls, "Pasha? Is that you?" from the steps.

Pavel stumbles from the jeep. He turns, face aflame, to face Sulu's grin. "Thank you, Mr. Sulu" he says, his sincerity somewhat strangled by his embarrassment.

Sulu holds out a hand. "Hikaru." He says, and his palm is cool and too-soft, fingers calloused by the trapeze bar. Pavel lets go a little too late and hurries into his trailer, losing himself in his mother's worried curses.


	2. On What Wings (Dare He Aspire) [2/2]

After that, he tags along with Nyota whenever she will let him, closing up the store a little early so that he can catch the last rays of the sun on the horizon. Sometimes she shows him around, or they hang out against the trailers, smoking her cigarettes while she vents about the long-fingered juggler (who, he discovers, is her tragic, oblivious love). 

"Just tell him," he says, and she laughs a full, joyful laugh. "No," she says, and shakes her head, eyes upward to the darkening sky. "No, Pasha, it is better as it is. I would rather have sad, longing dreams than no dreams at all."

Most often, though, Hikaru will come out and meet him just as Nyota slips inside, leaving him holding the end of the cigarette. Sometimes he will take it before Pavel even has a chance to take a drag, cool, strong fingers brushing across Pavel's knuckles. Pavel will smile at him and turn away so that he doesn't have to watch Hikaru put the butt of the cig to his lips, doesn't have to watch him roll the smoke in his mouth like there is something to it, something more than bitter air and tinted illusion.

He releases it, and when he does he's always smiling, like the smoke carries away his stress with it. He smiles at Pavel, especially, like he's sharing something secret and silent. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners, and Pavel aches.

Tonight he comes out of the tent smiling, though, and steals the cig directly from Pavel's lips, standing close. He tucks it between his own and then grabs Pavel by the wrist, pulling him into the tent.

Breathless for a moment, Pavel finally recovers his wits enough to stutter out, "Hikaru, what - where are we - "

"Shh!" Hikaru put two quick fingers to Pavel's lips, and Pavel closes his eyes with the effort not to kiss them. "Silence, Pasha," Hikaru says, and the blood rushes to Pavel's cheeks at the nickname. He is tugged forward, and he goes, eyes fluttering open to see -

The great lion, prowling around the center ring. Its shoulders move with silken grace, tail lashing around and around, belying its paws' slow pad. Its eyes are fixed on the figure in the center of the ring - the ringmaster, Kirk, dressed in his long, flared coat and high black boots. He looks tiny, next to the great cat, and Pavel realizes with a start that he is bare-handed - he has no whip, no prod, not even a long stick or switch.

"Is he a madman?" He breathes in horror, close to Hikaru's ear, and Hikaru flicks dark eyes to his. "Who isn't, in this place?" He asks, and grins, a sly, shining thing. It has little curls at the edges, hooks that pluck low and hot in Pavel's stomach.

Pavel takes in a long breath, releases it to the dark corners of the tent. When he turns his eyes again to the ring, the lion has lowered its head to James Tiberius Kirk, great forepaws stretched out in deference. The ringmaster glows in the dimness of the work lights, tawnier almost than his beast.

A shadow detaches itself from the rest, approaching Kirk. It resolves itself into the pale juggler - Spock, he is called _("Why Spock?" He asks Nyota, later, and she folds her lips in the sad way she does when he is mentioned, and then says, "Why Pavel?")_ \- and he is ghosting long hands across Kirk's shoulders.

Kirk turns, not stepping away, and they lean in close, breathing into one another's space, voices low and warm.

Pavel shivers as Hikaru wraps a warm hand around his shoulder and leads him away.

*

He makes enough money to buy a bicycle, and then he is there every night rather than very few. The ride into the desert is long, if flat, and often he has sweat pouring down his back when he arrives. The summer is lengthening again - compared to Russia, it is always summer, here, but now the locals are beginning to agree.

Everything is busy, at the circus - people rushing about everywhere. Janice is sitting by one of the trailers, using its headlights to see as she fixes up the paint on a sign. Nyota walks by pushing a rack of costumes that sparkle and shine in the dusk. Finally, Scotty notices him from where he was sitting, doing something complicated with the insides of an ancient, rusted ticket-machine.

"Hey, Chekov," he says, and gestures Pavel over with a screwdriver. "So long as you're around, you might as well lend a hand. "

Pavel does, holding the flashlight for him and pointing out where the wire is chewed through. They're a still point in a sea of movement, people rushing about everywhere. He sees Hikaru slide past once or twice, itches to go after him, but Scotty growls at him to keep his hands steady.

"You are preparing to open the show?" He asks Scotty, as the drummer dusts off his hands and replaces the panel on the back of the machine. Scotty nods. "Aye. This Sunday we open the doors to the gawking public. Gotta make sure we look our best."

Pavel nodded. "I will help," he says seriously, and Scotty grins at him. "Thanks, lad." He nodded to his left. "I think Sulu's over with the beasts, if you wanna go help him. Bring the broom."

Pavel does, casting Scotty a grateful look. Scotty watches him go with twinkling eyes.

Broom slung over his shoulders, he slips into the enclosure where the cages and pens are. The lion is asleep, head on its crossed paws like an enormous dog. The horses blows puffs of hot air from their nostrils at him. "No carrots, sorry," he laughs, and they eye him with disdain.

Hikaru is nowhere to be seen, but his discarded shirt is lying in a heap by the fence and Pavel decides to wait. He begins to sweep the hay and dust off the ground, although it is more like sweeping dust off of dust. He ignores the shirt, trying not to imagine Hikaru without it, like the day he first saw him, all coiled strength, sweat tracing his supple muscles. He raises the broom and awkwardly imitates those moves of the sword dance that he can remember (which is most of them - it is a well-worn memory). The broom is not balanced right and he feels off-center and strange. He swings it behind him, intending to bring it up and around and above his head in a majestic sweep.

Something catches the broom, behind him, and a low, familiar chuckle stops him in his tracks. He spins, still holding onto the broom, to find Hikaru grinning at him. "No, no, Pasha," he says, and then he's adjusting Pavel's hands with gentle fingers, sliding his hands down the smooth wood to _here_ and _there_. He steps around Pavel,  and then there is a hand at the base of his spine, pushing forward, and another on his chest, pulling back, and Pavel curves his spine, almost afraid to breathe as the hands slide, slow and soft, to his arms. "Swing," Hikaru murmurs in his ear, and Pavel swallows and does so. Hikaru's hands on his shoulders guide the path of his arms, and the broom feels much less awkward now. He thrusts forward with it, releases it with one hand, and turns with a swing, cutting a long vertical circle in the air next to him.

Hikaru has not moved away, and Pavel freezes, chest to chest with him, the momentum of the broom twisting his hand awkwardly. He drops it, and it clatters, hits the dust, brush and then pole, _thumpthump. Thumpthump._ His eyes are glued to Hikaru's face and god, they are so _close_ , he can feel Hikaru radiating heat.

Hikaru raises a hand, traces it up the side of Pavel's face, and Pavel's eyelids flutter. He lets himself melt into the touch a little, and he thinks, just for a moment, that he sees something like longing in Hikaru's eyes.

And then Hikaru's hand moves up to his curls, tugging on them playfully. "We'll make a dancer of you yet, Pasha," he says, and steps away.

Pavel rides home hard, that night, arriving sweaty and breathing short and sharp. His mother stops him as he flees to his section of the trailer.

"I am worried about you," she says. "Always away at that circus. It is not healthy, Pasha. Your father died in the ring, and yet you want to follow him!"

He shushes her, soothing. "It is fine, mother. The circus here is...nothing like those at home." He forces a smile. "I will show you! They open on Sunday, you should come with me."

"Come with you? How? I cannot fit on your tiny bike, Pasha!"

Pavel thinks for a moment. "I will get the jeep from Hikaru. Or he will drive us, earlier, and I can introduce you to everyone."

His mother immediately relaxes. Hikaru had won her over entirely one of the nights he'd driven Pavel home, charming her with sweet words and winning smiles. "He will keep you safe," she says, half a question. "He will not let anything happen."

He nods, and slips away to his bed. He fists a hand against his stomach, drags the other across his eyes. _He will not let anything happen._

**

He waits backstage during the first show, feeling like a ghost among the dust and feathers and glitter that littered the "wings" of the ring. He can hear Scotty's steady drumbeat, and closes his eyes, imagining Sulu spinning high above the ground, strong, perfect hands catching the bar, clap-clap, creating his own rhythm.

His mother had loved Scotty, hated Nyota. She'd blushed at being introduced to Kirk, and made eyes of her own at Spock. And now she is sitting out there, transfixed, no doubt, by the beauty in front of her.

He could be out there, too, but Nyota had asked him to stay here, help them from their costumes when they needed it, and he is glad of the chance. The circus feels like it is his, his place, and he does not wish to sit among the people he is forced to share it with.

When the curtain opens he catches a glimpse of Spock, hands like the wings of a hummingbird, seemingly surrounded by a thousand flying balls of every color of the rainbow.  The crowd roars and claps and screams, and then Nyota snaps her fingers in his face and he hurries to unzip her costume.

She's silent as she strips, and he understands that. He's been there - almost. He's performed on small stages, juggling and acrobatics mostly. He's come close to the sort of focus she has - bright-eyed and grinning but not ready to break the hold the lights and the audience have on her, because she's not done. She's not lazy, laconic Nyota yet - she's the Silk Queen, spinning her spiderweb of illusion above the crowd.

She is beautiful, all long, arched spine and bare feet, and he wishes for a single moment that he cared. It would be easier, perhaps, to long for a woman.

She darts back out into the noise, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

***

After the show, she finds him for a cigarette, and quirks an eyebrow. "It was amazing," he says, and then grins, "From what I saw from the back. "

"Of course it was," she said. "We're a circus."

"We're a circus," he agrees.

She looks at him sideways like a bird, a little startled and a little sad. She opens her mouth to speak, but the flap opens and Hikaru's laugh draws Pavel's eyes.

Sulu is leading his mother from the tent, grinning at her, and she's beaming, happier than he's seen her in a long time. Something in him clenches tight, and he stands tall, rigid.

Hikaru looks up. His eyes slide off Pavel's face, his smile fading a little. "Come on, I'll take you two home."

Pavel bites his lips. "You go on," he says. "I'll take my bicycle."

Hikaru frowns, but doesn't say anything. Pavel's mother, however, immediately objects. "Don't be ridiculous, Pasha. It was a beautiful thing, the circus, but you cannot become dependent on it. Hikaru was just telling me how they leave soon - move on West with the wind."

Pavel gulps in the night air, turns accusing eyes on Nyota because he _can't_ look at Hikaru. The sadness in her face intensifies. "I am sorry, Pasha, that we did not tell you. But...it can't be that unexpected. We are a circus."

He takes the cigarette from her. "You are a circus," he says, and breathes in bitterness.

"Pavel!" His mother says sharply. "Are you smoking?"

Pavel looks at her, looks at Hikaru, standing still and silent next to her, and releases a long breath. "I will take my bicycle," he repeats, and slides into the darkness of the desert.

He rides in long, sweeping circles, burning off the nervous energy making his limbs shake. He can feel it building behind his eyes, at the hollow of his throat. If he stops, he will cry.

When the sun peeks over the horizon he drops, limbs like lead, onto the sand. The sky lightens above him, and he thinks, _beautiful._

He leaves damp patches in the sand where he lies, sweat and tears both. They whiten to salt in the sun.

Hikaru is a dark silhouette, voice tight with anger. "Are you a _madman?_ "

Pavel sits up. When he smiles, his lips crack open and bleed. "Who isn't, in this place?" He asks, dry-throated, but he takes the hand Hikaru offers.

Hikaru pulls him up and close, not letting go of his hand. His eyes are sharp, sharper than Pavel's ever seen them, and maybe a little desperate. " _Never_ pull something like that again." He snaps, and Pavel bristles.

"If I do, you won't be able to yell at me," He points out, knowing he's being childish. "You're _leaving_."

Hikaru's eyes soften. "Pasha," he says, and Pavel is reminded yet again of how close they are standing, "We were always going to leave. It's who we are. We can't afford to...to make connections. Put down roots."

"I do not want you rooted!" Pavel protests. "If you were rooted, you could not fly. I _know_ that, Hikaru." He swallows, and then traces the line of Hikaru's collarbone. "Bring me with you. Let me be your copilot."

Hikaru closes his eyes, breathing in a long breath. "You are young, Pasha. So young."

Something in Pavel breaks, sharply and wetly. Tears spring to his eyes. " _Pavel_ ," he insists angrily. "Pavel Andreivich Chekov."

Hikaru looks surprised, opening his eyes. His gaze seems to catch on Pavel's lips, like a thread on a door frame, and then he tears it away. "Pavel." He says, and there is a nervous note to his voice.

"Would it really matter so much?" Pavel asks, still a little angry, turning Hikaru's face to his with insistent fingers against his chin. "Would two months make so much difference to you? Do you fear the law? What?"

"Not the law," he says, shiver-soft. "I fear...time. I know that you feel like we're fated, we're forever, but...forever doesn't work that way." He slides a thumb across Pavel's bottom lip, catching up the bright bead of blood. "What if I take you far away from here and we don't...." He takes a long, shaking breath. "I'd rather lose you now than see you lost, in a year or ten."

Pavel laughs loud to the too-blue sky, and Hikaru looks at him like he's gone mad. "Hikaru!" He gasps out, when he has room for anything but disbelief and bubbling joy. "I am _already_ so far from my home, what difference could a few miles make? Russia is in my heart and in my heels. Everywhere else is...eh, a temporary stop. Besides." He presses in, forehead to forehead with Hikaru. "Forever may not work that way, but that is because forever has not met _me_."

Hikaru laughs, then, velvet and a little awed, and Pavel kisses him, chapped lips to cool ones. Hikaru's hands are firm on Pavel's hips. He tastes slightly sour and slightly bitter from tobacco, and Pavel runs his tongue over the line of his perfect teeth. Hikaru leans back a little, breathing his air. "Forever has not met _us_." He murmurs against Pavel's lips. "Yet."

****

The lights are bright, making dark spots in Pavel's vision, but Hikaru's face is clear and confident. He feels a smile blossom, from heart to lips, and reaches out, linking his hand with Hikaru's. He can hear the crowds outside, babbling and laughing and clapping. The people here are no less excited than they were in Kansas, or Tennessee, or Virginia, though the nights are getting cold.

The drumbeat begins, and Hikaru pulls him close, pressing all along him just for an instant.

"Fly with me." He whispers, hot and low, and the curtain rises.


End file.
